This proposal requests partial support for a FASEB conference on The Mechanism and Regulation of Prokaryotic Transcription to be held from June 18-25, 2005 at Saxtons River, VT. This meeting is always oversubscribed. This extraordinarily successful meeting is the only one that broadly considers prokaryotic transcription. Its unique interdisciplinary character brings together cutting edge research from related but often non-intersecting field's thereby promoting cross-fertilization of ideas. It is here that new structures are unveiled, single molecule studies are showcased and models of transcriptional circuits are presented. In the current meeting, we continue the emphasis on single molecule studies and increase the discussion of emerging systems biology approaches to transcriptional control. The proposed sessions for the meeting are: Structure and Function of RNA polymerase, ll-lll. Transcription Initiation; IV-V. Transcription elongation/termination; VI. Repressers/Activators; VII. Global Regulatory networks; VIM. Regulation in stress and development; IX. Regulatory strategies. Each session has both invited speakers and those chosen from the abstracts. Our invited speakers include women, minorities and new faculty. Participants are primarily from major research institutions, with representation from small colleges and industry and include faculty, post-doctoral fellows and graduate students. [unreadable] [unreadable] Studies at the national level have identified the need to integrate nanotechnology and systems biological approaches with other methodology for examining biological problems. This meeting does just that. People using every possible approach to a tractable and important biological problem-the mechanism and regulation of prokaryotic transcription - will be interacting intensively for an extended period of time. The outcome will not only be an increasing synthesis of all of these approaches. It is also the only meeting where physicists or modelers wishing to enter this field can gain both collaborators and a historical perspective. This activity will have a national impact far beyond the scope of this meeting [unreadable] [unreadable]